IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Devastation and rescue in Nepal after massive earthquake; March 2015 the hottest March on record; Sardines crash in the Pacific; PLUS: Fighting climate change with the power of poo... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Just a week ago, about 50 earthquake and social scientists from around the world came to Kathmandu, Nepal, to figure out how to get this poor, congested, overdeveloped, shoddily built area to prepare better for the big one, a repeat of the 1934 temblor that leveled this city. They knew they were racing the clock, but they didn't know when what they feared would strike.
..."They knew they had a problem but it was so large they didn't where to start, how to start," said Hari Kumar, southeast Asia regional coordinator for GeoHazards International.

"A coordinated international disaster relief and long-term reconstruction program will need to be funded by bilateral assistance from donor nations and development financing agencies under the coordinated management of multilateral institutions such as the United Nations," Rajiv Biswas, chief economist, Asia-Pacific at IHS wrote in the research note.

California's been getting all the attention, but it isn't the only agriculture-centric western state dealing with brutal drought. Washington, a major producer of wheat and wine grapes and the source of nearly 70 percent of US apples grown for fresh consumption, also endured an usually warm and snow-bereft winter.

Life has suddenly gotten easier for the sardine. Federal regulators are not only closing the commercial sardine fishing season early in Oregon, Washington and California, but it will stay closed for more than a year.

To achieve these reductions, the USDA plans to encourage farmers, ranchers, and foresters to adopt a slew of sustainable practices, from improved nutrient management to enhanced forest conservation. To reduce fertilizer pollution, the USDA hopes to increase the U.S.’s amount of no-till cropland from the current 67 million acres to over 100 million acres by 2025. To tackle methane from livestock production, the USDA intends to support the installation of 500 new digester plants — meant to turn animal waste into renewable energy — over the next 10 years. The department will also maximize efforts to improve energy efficiency and increase the use of renewable energy, especially the use of biomass as a fuel source.

Specific actions to be announced Thursday include reducing the unnecessary use of fertilizer and methane emissions from cattle and swine, reforesting areas damaged by wildfire and disease and encouraging tree planting in urban areas.

In a hilarious admission that he has been too low key to convey the moral outrage justified by humanity’s myopic march toward self-destruction — and by the brazen denial of climate science by many conservatives — Obama brought out “Luther” to express that outrage. And then, in an ingenious twist, Obama became so outraged that he didn’t need Luther and in fact Luther himself couldn’t take the genuinely angry Obama, who says of denial, “What kind of stupid, shortsighted, irresponsible, bull–”

Here it is: solar photovoltaic (PV) power is eventually going to dominate global energy. The question is not if, but when. Maybe it will happen radically faster than anyone expects — say, by 2050. Or maybe it won't be until the year 3000, or later. But it'll happen.

The main reason is pretty simple: solar PV is different from every other source of electricity, in ways that make it uniquely well-suited to 21st-century needs.

Facing a thicket of candidates and ballot measures in the November election, Florida voters sent one resounding message to elected officials: More must be done to protect the state’s natural habitats — including the long-suffering Everglades.

Nevada's Lake Mead, the largest capacity reservoir in the United States, is on track to drop to its lowest water level in recorded history on Sunday as its source, the Colorado River, suffers from 14 years of severe drought, experts said on Friday.

The case for restricting a controversial family of insecticides is growing. Two studies published on 22 April in Nature1, 2 address outstanding questions about the threat that the chemicals pose to bees, and come as regulators around the world gear up for a fresh debate on pesticide restrictions.

A common type of pesticide is dramatically harming wild bees, according to a new in-the-field study that outside experts say may help shift the way the U.S. government looks at a controversial class of chemicals.

New research from a major national lab projects that the rate of climate change, which has risen sharply in recent decades, will soar by the 2020s. This worrisome projection - which has implications for extreme weather, sea level rise, and permafrost melt - is consistent with several recent studies.

Another threat, according to Grant, has been well-intentioned individuals who have planted a tropical form of milkweed, which competes with native varieties and is not beneficial to monarchs or other pollinators.

But exactly how bad is still an open question, and a lot depends not only on how we react, but how quickly. The rate at which humans cut down on greenhouse gas emissions--if we do choose to cut them--will have a large bearing on how the world turns out by 2100, the forecasts reveal.

Restraining global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius will require changing how the world produces and uses energy to power its cities and factories, heats and cools buildings, as well as moves people and goods in airplanes, trains, cars, ships and trucks, according to the IPCC. Changes are required not just in technology, but also in people's behavior.